President Obama has now released his budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2015, to fund the government’s $3.5 trillion-plus operations, and the budget recommendations include several important provisions for animals. If ratified by Congress, these proposals will extend prohibitions on funding horse slaughter plant inspections in the U.S. and on sending wild horses and burros to slaughter, will continue strong funding for enforcement of animal welfare laws, and will dedicate new funds to combat illegal wildlife trafficking. But unfortunately, they will also take a step backward in one area by dramatically cutting poultry slaughter inspections.

Photo by Jennifer Kunz.

Congress previously passed a provision in the FY 2014 omnibus spending bill to prohibit the use of tax dollars to inspect horse slaughter plants, which halted imminent plans to open U.S. horse slaughter operations, and the president’s new budget proposal would continue that ban for another year. Americans do not eat horses and do not want to see scarce tax dollars used to oversee a predatory and inhumane industry, which rounds up horses by disreputable means and peddles their doped-up meat to foreign consumers.

The president’s budget also includes good news for wild horses and burros inhabiting the public lands of ten western states. For years, ranchers have pressured the government to control mustang herds by rounding the horses up and adopting them out—but the pace of roundups has wildly exceeded the number of potential adopters, and there is a risk that the animals could be sold to “killer buyers” and sent to commercial slaughter for human consumption. The president’s budget, however, makes it clear that the Bureau of Land Management should not use funds to send these iconic animals to slaughter. It also includes a $2.8 million increase for the BLM’s wild horse and burro program, and the agency has specified that this additional funding will go toward research on population-control methods, which are superior to round-ups and will help provide a more lasting, humane, and cost-effective solution. continue reading…

HSLF and HSUS are backing the bill, along with more than 100 horse industry and veterinary organizations and many others. Introduced by Reps. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., and Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., and Sens. Kelly Ayotte, N.H., and Mark Warner, D-Va., the legislation has the bipartisan support of 266 House cosponsors and 48 Senate cosponsors. Not many bills in Congress ever amass so many cosponsors – a solid majority of the Congress.

But rather than halt their criminal conduct within their industry and support efforts to strengthen the law so that it will serve as a meaningful deterrent to people who torment horses to win ribbons at shows, some in the horse soring community have worked with a handful of lawmakers to try to maintain the status quo. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., this week introduced “alternative” legislation to the PAST Act that can be described as nothing but a get-out-of-jail-free card to those who perpetrate the cruel practice of soring. continue reading…

Great news! Today [January 27] the Farm Bill Conference Committee just released its conference report containing the final version of the U.S. Farm Bill. We can thankfully relay that the dreaded King Amendment is nowhere to be found in any of the 949 pages that will be sent to the full House and Senate for a final vote.

Image courtesy ALDF Blog.

As ALDF repeatedly has warned, the King Amendment outrageously would have prevented your state from ever setting its own health, safety and welfare standards and applying them to imported agricultural products produced elsewhere. In doing so it immediately would have rolled back laws in 8 states that forbid cruel farm animal confinement, rescinded California’s Foie Gras ban, horse slaughter and puppy mill prohibitions, children’s nutritional requirements, and have nullified CA’s Prop 2 and other such ballot initiatives where voters have spoken to demand better treatment for the animals whose products are sold within their own state borders.

The King amendment inevitably would have created a “race to the bottom” whereby the most abusive and dangerous rules in the country would become de facto national standards––since producers “doing it on the cheap” in one state always would undercut the prices of domestic producers in those states that care more about public health and animal welfare. continue reading…

Most immediately, the Act ensures that horses will not be slaughtered for human consumption in this country for the time being—restoring a ban on using any Federal dollars to inspect horse slaughter facilities. Without those government inspections, slaughterhouses are not legally able to comply with Federal Meat Inspection Act standards.

Although no horse has been legally slaughtered for food on U.S. soil since the remaining plants were finally shut down in 2007, last year three facilities in New Mexico, Iowa & Missouri were granted permits to start slaughtering horses again—after one plant sued the USDA to allow the killing to begin. This was only possible because Congress’s previous inspection funding ban expired in 2011, demonstrating that targeting inspections is at best a temporary and tenuous tool in the effort to permanently protect American horses from harm. continue reading…

Racehorses are impressive, and it would be hard not to be awed by their power and grace. But there’s an important power they lack: unlike other athletes, they have no control over the drugs administered to them. That’s why groups such as The HSUS and HSLF and concerned legislators and citizens must be their voice.

Horse race—image courtesy Humane Society Legislative Fund

The House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade heard that voice today during a hearing on H.R. 2012, the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act, a bill introduced by Reps. Joe Pitts, R-Pa., Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., and Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., to protect horses from pervasive race-day doping and other inhumane practices. (A companion bill, S. 973, is sponsored by Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M.). The legislation would safeguard both the animal and human athletes who participate in the sport, as well as help the racing industry’s reputation recover from bad publicity about cheating and unfair advantages.

Five of the six witnesses who testified before the subcommittee this morning—including a former Minnesota Racing Commissioner, the CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), the founder and director of the American College of Veterinary Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation, and HSUS president and CEO Wayne Pacelle—spoke eloquently in favor of the bill. They explained that drugging is a serious problem that puts racehorses and jockeys at risk, and puts the integrity of the entire industry, including owners, trainers, and veterinarians, at risk as well. H.R. 2012 is a pro-animal, pro-industry measure that can wipe out the cheating by relying on the USADA, an independent body that has helped root out doping in other professional sports, to oversee and enforce new rules. continue reading…

"Service Animal" Scammers (New Yorker): An increasing number of your neighbors have been keeping company with their pets in human-only establishments simply by claiming that the creatures are their licensed companion animals and are necessary to their mental well-being.